Privacy

WASHINGTON - The National Security Agency acknowledged that it repeatedly violated its own privacy guidelines in a now-defunct program to collect "to and from" data in American email, according to newly released documents that paint a picture of incompetence but offer no evidence that the agency intentionally misused its surveillance powers. A judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, John D. Bates, said in an opinion whose date was redacted that there had been "systemic over collection" in the email program and that "those responsible for conducting oversight at the NSA had failed to do so effectively.

One unlucky New York couple became the subject of comedian Kyle Ayers's tweets on Saturday night. Using the hashtag #roofbreakup , Ayers spent the hours live-tweeting all of the sordid action, if you can call it that -- the banality of banality might be more appropriate -- and thousands of us plugged into Twitter, riveted as if it were an intense if awkwardly-scripted melodrama. Though it's feasible that it was a stunt cooked up by Ayers, he maintained the premise all weekend long, responding to dozens of rapt readers and retweeting media mentions of the drama.

SAN FRANCISCO -- After a lengthy delay and under growing pressure from regulators and lawmakers, Facebook moved forward with updates to its privacy policy on Friday but deleted a controversial sentence that claimed any teen using the service was assumed to have gotten permission from a parent or guardian for his or her name, image and information to be used in advertising on the service. The giant social network insisted that it was not changing its policies, merely clarifying language in them, and that it already has permission from its users - - including teens - - to use their personal data in ads. But the decision to remove the sentence came amid scrutiny on Capitol Hill of how Internet companies track and target teens.

Max Mosley won fame in the motorsports world as the longtime chief of Formula One's governing body. Five years ago, however, Mosley's notoriety spread far beyond the race circuit, and not in a good way. A British tabloid released a prison-themed sadomasochistic sex tape featuring Mosley and five prostitutes, and alleged that Mosley had paid for an orgy set in an ersatz Nazi concentration camp - an accusation made all the more sensational by the fact...

Google Inc. has been ordered by a French court to remove from its search engine private images of an international race car official who was the subject of a sexual scandal. According to a report by the Wall Street Journa l, the case involved Max Mosley, who once upon a time ran the Formula One racing circuit. Josley sued Google to get the company to filter images of him along with any links from its search results. The Tribunal de Grande Instance ruled that Google must remove nine images.

Five months after Americans learned that information about their telephone calls was being indiscriminately scooped up by the National Security Agency, Congress seems poised to place limits on the bulk collection of telephone "metadata" - information about the source, destination and duration of telephone calls but not their contents. That's a positive development. But there is a world of difference between the legislation approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which would make only minor improvements in the program, and a superior proposal by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)

It's pretty much expected that everyone knows everything about you in today's privacy-free world. But it's still freaky to see how easily a business can crawl into your life. Elaine Miller, 61, recently was expecting a package from UPS. She called the company and asked whether she could find out a rough time frame for the delivery in case her signature was required. A rep said the package would arrive at Miller's Mar Vista home at some point between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. - not the most customer-friendly arrangement.

European lawmakers on Monday voted overwhelmingly to approve new data protections aimed at shielding citizens' private communications from the probing eyes of intelligence operatives and commercial snoopers. The first major upgrade in the continent's data privacy regulations in 18 years still faces months of negotiations to assimilate the laws and practices of the European Union's 28 member states. But the 49-3 vote of a European Parliament committee to approve the draft law reflected widespread concern among Europe's 500 million citizens for the privacy of their communications after revelations of massive data surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency.

LONDON - Confronted with mounting concern over possible violation of civil liberties, lawmakers in Britain said Thursday for the first time that they would hear evidence from the public in their examination of the mass spying conducted by American and British national security authorities. Malcolm Rifkind, head of Parliament's intelligence committee, acknowledged that laws regulating surveillance were written mostly before the development of technology that allows governments to collect vast amounts of electronic data on ordinary people.

SAN FRANCISCO - Parents take note: Your teens can now post status updates and photos on Facebook for anyone to see. The giant social network on Wednesday lifted restrictions on kids ages 13 to 17 that kept them from sharing information with people they do not know. Until now, teens' posts on Facebook could be viewed only by friends and the friends of their friends. The move presents a tough new challenge to parents trying to keep their kids safe on social media. Facebook said it was bringing its privacy policy in line with competitors' by giving teens the freedom to decide whether they want to express themselves among a close circle of friends or with a bullhorn.